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Brazil and the Bomb

Vexing nuclear activities in South America

Hans Rühle | Brazil is almost certainly developing nuclear weapons. There is

no definitive proof yet. However, the country’s earlier nuclear weapons
programs and the policy of President Lula da Silva’s government suggest
that Brazil’s quest for power and international recognition will ultimately
lead her to discard her commitment to non-proliferation and put an end to
President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

In October 2009 the renowned Ameri- tional bogeyman, President Ahmadine-

can journal “Foreign Policy” published
an article entitled “The Future Nuclear
Powers You Should Be Worried About.”
It argued that after Iran, the next can-
didates for the illustrious club of nu-
clear-armed states were Burma (Myan-
mar), Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, the
United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
However, even though the author pre-
sented a number of interesting argu-
ments for this prognosis, his list failed
to include the most important potential
member of the nuclear club: Brazil.
Brazil is currently held in high re-
gard by the rest of the world. Its presi-
dent, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, has be-
come a star on the international stage.
“This is my man, right here,” said
Barack Obama on meeting the Brazil-
ian president at last year’s G-20 sum-
mit. Eminent visitors from all over the
world have been beating a path to his
doorstep. Lula da Silva even got away
with receiving the current interna-
jad of Iran, with full state honors and
demonstratively supporting Iran’s in-
ternationally suspect nuclear program.
Lula da Silva has good reason for
such displays of self-confidence.
Under his leadership Brazil, the
world’s fifth-largest nation, has
emerged as an international economic
powerhouse comparable with China
and India. At the beginning of 2010,
the Brazilian president was presented
with a “Global Statesmanship Award”
at the World Economic Forum in
Davos. He is the first recipient of this
prize, which recognizes the achieve-
ments of political leaders who have
used their position to “improve the
world”—in his case by enabling the
poor and socially disadvantaged to
participate in their country’s new-
found economic growth.
However, Lula da Silva is not only
an embodiment of economic ascen-
dency but also of Brazil’s claim to

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power and influence based on its
new-found economic clout. This is
evident in the “National Defense
Strategy” that the Brazilian leader
presented at the end of 2008. Apart
from stressing the need to modernize
Brazil’s armed forces and defense in-
dustry, the NDS includes the key
tenet that Brazil can only achieve na-
tional independence and internation-
al prominence by mastering sensitive
technologies in the strategic sectors of
space, cybernetics, and “nuclear af-
fairs.” The document leaves no doubt
that Brazil regards mastery of the
complete nuclear fuel cycle and the
inclusion of nuclear-powered subma-
rines in its defense network as essen-
tial to its leadership role at both the
regional and international levels.
After signing an agreement with
France on December 23, 2008 to build
several submarines, including one
designated to be equipped with nu-
clear propulsion by the Brazilians
themselves, Lula da Silva said, “Effec-
tive military capabilities are indis-
pensable to the transformation of our
country into a power that is respected
by the whole world... Brazil has to
embody the greatness God gave it
when He created the world.” The
minister for strategic affairs, former
Harvard professor Roberto Mangabei-
ra Unger, went one better by pro-
claiming, “Brazil is arming itself!”
These kinds of pronouncements by
the Brazilian leadership have raised
doubts regarding the defensive orien-
tation of the Brazil’s security policy
and the limitation of its nuclear ac-
tivities to the production of small re-
actors for submarines. And there are
good reasons for such doubts. Between
1975 and 1990 Brazil ran several secret
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nuclear programs. At the time the in-
ternal justification for one of these se-
cret programs was also the avowed in-
tention to build nuclear-powered sub-
marines and to develop small reactors
for this purpose. There has never been
any official declaration of the military
goals Brazil was really pursuing or of
the stage the programs had reached by
the time they were wound up.
Brazil’s entry into the nuclear world
dates back to 1953, when the govern-
ment attempted to buy ultracentrifuges
from West Germany. The United States
obstructed the sale and then in 1955
signed its own agreement with Brazil
on peaceful nuclear cooperation. The
United States subsequently provided
Brazil with its first research reactor in
1957 and its first nuclear power plant
in 1971, the light-
water reactor Brazil’s civil nuclear program
Angra I. In 1975 failed because of its
West Germany secret “parallel program”
agreed to provide to develop a bomb.
Brazil with facili-
ties for a complete nuclear fuel cycle
and between eight and ten nuclear
power plants. The International Atom-
ic Energy Agency (IAEA) was to mon-
itor all facilities included in the deal,
although at this time Brazil had still
not signed the nuclear Non-Prolifera-
tion Treaty (NPT). The collaboration
between Germany and Brazil did not
prove a success. When the agreement
quietly expired 15 years later, Brazil
found itself with a half-finished nu-
clear power plant and a conceptually
flawed enrichment program.
A fundamental reason for the fail-
ure of this large-scale civil nuclear
program lay in the government’s se-
cret “parallel program” to develop an
atomic bomb, which also began in
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1975 and was given absolute priority
as a result of Brazil’s increasing ri-
valry with Argentina. Each branch of
the military pursued its own program
to produce fissile material. The army
focused on producing plutonium
using a graphite reactor fueled by
natural uranium; the air force opted
for laser enrichment; and the navy
attempted to manufacture highly en-
riched uranium with imported high-
speed centrifuges and uranium hexa-
fluoride, also imported.
Progress varied. The army failed
early and comprehensively. Although
the air force also had little success
with its enrichment program, it did
manage to complete a number of stud-
ies on nuclear weapons systems and
construct a 300-meter-deep shaft for
testing nuclear
All participants in the nuclear weapons. The
program agreed that they most promising
needed to test with a concept proved to
peaceful explosion. be the navy’s, and
its centrifuge-
based enrichment efforts soon came
to dominate the entire “parallel pro-
gram.” Its plan to develop small reac-
tors using enriched uranium for nu-
clear submarines remained unchal-
lenged. Nevertheless, all participants
basically agreed that at some point
the nuclear capability produced need-
ed to be tested with a “peaceful nu-
clear explosion.”
In 1981 the navy installed its first
centrifuge, and in autumn 1984 it
brought a mini-cascade of nine centri-
fuges online. In September 1987—
after the end of military rule—the
navy announced publicly that it had
mastered the enrichment process. In
addition, the president at the time,
José Sarney, admitted that “laboratory
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tests” had achieved an enrichment
level of 20 percent, which led a num-
ber of commentators to predict that
Brazil would have nuclear weapons by
the end of the millennium.
This was not to be. With the elec-
tion of Fernando Collor de Mello’s
government in 1990, the “parallel pro-
gram” came to an end. Because of
persistent rumors that the military
was still pursuing the program on its
own initiative, the president even took
the symbolic step of shoveling lime
into the test shaft built by the air
force, making it clear to all Brazilians
that the government was “burying”
the “parallel program.” A week later
the president announced that Brazil
was rejecting “the idea of any test that
implies nuclear explosions, even for
peaceful ends.” This was the first time
that a Brazilian president had ever re-
nounced the use of “peaceful nuclear
explosions.” There were good reasons
for this declaration. In 1988 Brazil
had already adopted a new constitu-
tion that limited nuclear activities to
“peaceful uses.” This formal ending of
the “parallel program” initiated a dis-
cussion both in Brazil and abroad
about what it had actually involved
and just how far it had come.
Even though the secrecy of the
program meant that facts were hard to
come by, a general consensus soon
emerged that the goal of the “parallel
program” had been the development
of nuclear weapons. Even in the early
days of the program, President Ernes-
to Geisel responded to the perceived
threat of Argentina’s intent to acquire
nuclear weapons by demanding simi-
lar efforts on Brazil’s part: “Perhaps
we can also develop a technology for
the manufacture of nuclear weapons

like the others have.” However, by the
time the program was terminated, it
had produced only the technology, not
the weapons themselves.
The fact that no bomb was actual-
ly constructed led some commenta-
tors to assume that the “parallel pro-
gram” had merely been a “technology
program.” This is nonsense. Ultimate-
ly every military nuclear program be-
gins as a “technology program” and
remains one for some time. Further-
more, an inquiry begun in 1990 by a
Brazilian government commission
into the “parallel program” brought a
number of disturbing facts to light.
According to the commission, an in-
stitution affiliated with the air force
had designed two nuclear warheads,
one of which had a capacity of 20 to
30 kilotons. The former president of
the National Commission for Nuclear
Energy, Jose Luis Santana, has claimed
that around 1990 the Brazilian mili-
tary came very close to producing an
atomic bomb. According to Santana,
the armed forces had already built
several components of the bomb by
early 1990 and had access to imported
weapons-grade uranium.
Even though these statements
need to be taken with a grain of salt,
it is clear that the “parallel program”
forming part of Brazil’s nuclear de-
velopment until 1990 aimed to pro-
duce nuclear weapons. The navy’s
own program was an exception in the
sense that its initial phase was de-
signed to build small reactors for nu-
clear submarines. It was therefore
able to sidestep the halt ordered by
the Collar de Mello government.
However, in 1996 this program was
also wound up. The official reason
was a lack of money, but ultimately
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the program was simply incompatible
with the political atmosphere of the
time.
Brazil now entered a phase marked
by improved relations with Argenti-
na, the development of civil nuclear
facilities, and integration into the in-
ternational non-proliferation regime.
The historical rivalry between Brazil
and Argentina that had intensified as
a result of nuclear activities in the
1970s and 80s began to dissipate fol-
lowing the end of the military regime.
In 1985 the two countries embarked
on a phase of pragmatic cooperation
in the nuclear field.
This was made easier by the fact
that both states had been indepen-
dently pursuing largely parallel nu-
clear policies. They had independently
developed complete
fuel cycles. Their Improved relations with
nuclear facilities Argentina dramatically
with clear military changed both countries’
applications were nuclear policies.
not monitored.
Both countries generally rejected the
idea of international non-proliferation
and for a long time, refused to sign the
NPT and subject themselves to its
monitoring procedures. They dis-
tanced themselves from the Nuclear
Suppliers Group and rejected the Trea-
ty of Tlateloco, which aimed to estab-
lish Latin America as a nuclear-weap-
ons-free zone. They both maintained
the option of so-called “peaceful nu-
clear explosions,” and for years they
were involved in questionable nuclear
export activities, particularly in the
direction of the Middle East.
All this came to a sudden end after
1990. In 1991 Brazil and Argentina
signed an agreement renouncing their
right to conduct “peaceful nuclear ex-
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plosions” and allowing both countries
to inspect the other’s nuclear facilities.
The agreement also marked the entry
of both countries into the internation-
al nuclear non-proliferation regime. In
1994 Brazil signed the Treaty for the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America and
The military resisted limiting the Caribbean. In
its functions to supplying the 1996 it also be-
civil nuclear industry. came a member of
the Nuclear Sup-
pliers Group, and in 1998 it finally
ratified the NPT and the Comprehen-
sive Test Ban Treaty. However, there
were troubling aspects to the path
taken by Brazil during this period as
well. These would not merit a men-
tion here were it not for the fact that
they are directly linked to the highly
dramatic developments we are now
seeing in Brazilian nuclear policy.
Although the goal of building a nu-
clear-powered submarine was formal-
ly abandoned in 1996, the following
years saw repeated attempts to revive
the project. A fundamental reason for
this was the fact that the entire nu-
clear enrichment program remained
under the control of the navy. There
was resistance to the idea that Aramar
Research Center, which was equipped
with 1000 centrifuges, should now
limit its functions to supplying the
civil nuclear industry. Against this
background, it was hardly surprising
when in January 2000 the Brazilian
government attempted to revive the
submarine project. It failed because
the parliament refused to approve the
funding. However, political lobbying
continued for the project, which had
more or less developed an administra-
tive life of its own. These efforts
were rewarded when the Lula da
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Silva government took office. In Oc-
tober 2003 the work on the develop-
ment of a nuclear-powered subma-
rine was officially resumed.
Cooperation with the IAEA also
quickly became a problem for Brazil.
The government was hesitant to pro-
vide facts on the country’s nuclear
activities during the 1970s and 80s
that the IAEA required for its first
status report and eventually presented
only incomplete information. The
IAEA finally gave in and certified
Brazil’s nuclear stocks and the design
of its facilities. In the following years
the nuclear watchdog was able to con-
duct its inspections unhindered.
However, this also changed once
Lula da Silva became president. In
April 2004 the Brazilian authorities
refused to allow IAEA inspectors un-
restricted access to a new enrichment
plant in Resende. The centrifuges
were concealed behind two-meter-
high wooden panels that were suppos-
edly there to prevent “technological
piracy.” In any case, the Brazilians ar-
gued, the IAEA could still monitor
whether critical material had been di-
verted. Although the IAEA reached a
somewhat dubious compromise with
the Brazilian government by the end
of 2004, the question remained as to
why there had been any obstruction
in the first place.
A lively public debate ensued in
which new motives and conspiracy
theories seemed to crop up almost
daily. It took on a hysterical note
when the American magazine Science
claimed that the facility in Resende
had the potential to produce enough
weapons-grade uranium for five to six
warheads per year. However, all evi-
dence seems to suggest that conceal-

ing the centrifuges was merely a mea-
sure to hide their dubious origins. In-
deed, there are good reasons—backed
up by a considerable amount of infor-
mation—for assuming that all or some
of the centrifuges installed in Resende
can be traced back to the Pakistani nu-
clear smuggler Abdul Qadeer Khan.
In any event, the bizarre incident
in Resende inevitably resulted in
speculation that Brazil had some-
thing to hide when it came to its nu-
clear activities. Moreover, it indicated
that the Lula da Silva government
had its own nuclear agenda, some-
thing that was confirmed by the Na-
tional Defense Strategy adopted in
December 2008. As was to be ex-
pected, the first point this document
addresses concerns the nuclear sub-
marine program. However, it also
contains a passage calling for an in-
crease in “the capacity to use nuclear
energy within a broad spectrum of
activities.” Although the strategy
confirms Brazil’s status as a signatory
to the NPT it also states that Brazil
will not agree to any additional NPT
restrictions until the nuclear weap-
ons states make more progress to-
ward nuclear disarmament.
This not only signals a clear lack
of confidence in the international
non-proliferation regime but also—as
has now been officially confirmed—a
definitive refusal to sign up to the ad-
ditional protocol to the NPT intro-
duced in 1997 that allows for inspec-
tions of undeclared nuclear facilities.
The rationale for this restrictive poli-
cy became clear at a meeting of the
Nuclear Suppliers Group in January
2009, where Brazilian representatives
energetically resisted adopting any
obligation that could have resulted in
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the nuclear submarine program be-
coming more transparent.
But why all that secrecy? What is it
about its development of small reac-
tors to power submarines that Brazil
is so keen to hide? After all, for sev-
eral decades most major powers have
had access to systems of this kind.
The answer to this question is
simple, yet it does not come easy. In
the facilities that are declared as pro-
duction sites for nuclear submarines
Brazil is also most probably working
on something else—nuclear weapons.
In the Brazilian context this is not
exactly sensational news. From the
late 1970s onwards commentators re-
peatedly referred to the submarine
program as a code or synonym for a
nuclear-bomb program being conduct-
ed by the Brazilian navy. However,
due to a lack of evidence this assertion
did not result in any concrete action.
Things changed when in November
2007 the Brazilian four-star general
Jose Moreira, a senior official at the
ministry of defense and a designated
consultant to Brazil’s Permanent Mis-
sion to the United Nations, startled
the public by stating, “If the govern-
ment agrees, we
need to have the The submarine program
ability in the fu- is clearly a cover for a
ture to develop a nuclear bomb program.
nuclear weapon...
We cannot be oblivious to the world’s
reality... The world lacks water, en-
ergy, food and minerals. Brazil is rich
in all of these. For this reason we
must put a strong lock on our door.”
Although a few days later the Bra-
zilian defense minister, Nelson Jobim,
described the military nuclear option
as nonsense, the genie was out of the
bottle. At the end of September 2009
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the Brazilian vice-president José Alen-
car gave an interview in which he ex-
pressed his support for arming Brazil
with nuclear weapons in the future.
He argued that for a country with a
15,000 kilometer border and rich off-
shore oil resources nuclear weapons
were an important instrument of “de-
terrence” and also a means of increas-
ing Brazil’s international standing. In
this context he referred to the example
of Pakistan, which, although poor,
maintained a “comprehensive inter-
national presence—solely because it
has nuclear weapons.”
When his interviewer pointed out
that Brazil had signed the NPT, Alen-
car was unperturbed. This was not a
problem, he said, and a matter that
remained open to negotiation. Indeed
the Lula da Silva
President Lula da Silva government has
could easily change the never accepted the
constitutional prohibition on NPT as a necessi-
nuclear weapons. ty, seeing it rather
as a superficial re-
sponse by a former government to the
supposed pressure of world opinion.
In the 2003 election campaign Lula da
Silva described the NPT as unfair: “If
someone asks me to disarm and keep
a slingshot while he comes at me with
a cannon, what good does that do?”
It is quite probable that Lula da
Silva has a similar attitude to the pro-
hibition on the development and pro-
duction of nuclear weapons enshrined
in the constitution of 1988. Although
this prohibition has not played a sig-
nificant role in the current discussion,
it is clear to everyone that the presi-
dent could easily change the constitu-
tion in this respect. The immense au-
thority he currently enjoys and a clear
statement that there can be no justifi-
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cation for the United States monopo-
lizing nuclear weapons on the Ameri-
can continent would suffice to intro-
duce such a change.
For the moment the constitutional
prohibition is still in place. Brazil is
still a signatory to the non-prolifera-
tion treaty, and the IAEA is still able
to inspect all declared nuclear facili-
ties. Is it possible to imagine a sce-
nario in which Brazil is nevertheless
engaging in the—illegal—construc-
tion of nuclear weapons? Unfortu-
nately the answer is yes. Clearly, if
Brazil is legally manufacturing small
reactors for a nuclear submarine it
needs access to nuclear material regu-
lated by the IAEA. However, since
Brazil has designated its production
site for the nuclear submarine as a
restricted military zone, IAEA inspec-
tors no longer have access to it and
thus cannot monitor whether the nu-
clear material is being put to any other
uses. In other words, once the legally
delivered enriched uranium is inside
the gates of the production facility, it
can be used for any purpose, including
the construction of nuclear weapons.
We should not forget that Brazil is
not a nuclear beginner but in fact has
15 years of research into nuclear
weapons under its belt. Moreover, a
conversion facility completed in 2010
has given Brazil complete control of
the nuclear-fuel cycle and it can now
produce all the necessary components
on an industrial scale.
The project to build small reactors
for submarines has another invalu-
able advantage for potential bomb-
builders. Almost all nuclear subma-
rines are powered by weapon-usable
uranium (U-235), that is, uranium
hexafluoride enriched to a level of 93

percent. If Brazil decides to use such a
configuration for its small reactors,
then the government would have le-
gitimate grounds for producing highly
enriched uranium.
There are a number of reasons for
suspecting that such considerations
already played a role when the sub-
marine program was initiated. The
argument that the sister ships of the
French Scorpène-class submarine to
be equipped with Brazilian small re-
actors will be powered by low-en-
riched uranium (7-20 percent) is not
really convincing. Brazil has obvious-
ly decided to develop its own variant
and as yet we do not know what this
will entail. In any case, it does not
seem as if Brazil will have any prob-
lem enriching uranium to whatever
concentration it wants.
When interviewing Mario Ferreira
Bothelo, director of Brazilian enrich-
ment activities, Klaus Kleber, maker
of the award-winning documentary
“The Bomb,” pointed out that produc-
ing highly enriched uranium was not
technically difficult. Bothelo respond-
ed, “But that is not Brazil’s plan. We
are not intending to do this in our fa-
cilities. However, I can’t guarantee
that this will always be the case. The
world and people change. It’s in our
nature.” Honi soit qui mal y pense.
At this point one would usually
raise the question of ultimate, con-
crete proof—the “smoking gun”. But
there is no concrete proof, at least not
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yet. Nevertheless, in light of past de-
velopments and given the experience
with comparable cases, one can dare
to conclude that Brazil is most proba-
bly developing nuclear weapons.
Moreover, it does not need a lot of
time to do this. Experts at Los Alamos
have concluded that in view of its pre-
vious nuclear activities Brazil is in a
position to produce nuclear weapons
within three years. This does not bode
well either for Latin America, where
there is a danger of creating a nuclear
domino effect, or for the rest of the
world, which would have to surrender
yet another illusion.
If Brazil does acquire a nuclear
military capability, it will bring an end
to the vision of a world free of nuclear
weapons expressed so pointedly in
Prague by Barack Obama. This pros-
pect is hardly surprising, at least not
for the adherents of political realism.
The “vision thing” is tricky. Former
German chancellor Helmut Schmidt
once said that anyone who had visions
should see a doctor. And Gen. James
Jones, Obama’s national security advi-
sor, is fond of saying that “a vision
without resources is a hallucination.”
HANS RÜHLE is the
former director of the
planning staff in the
German Ministry of
Defense.
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